Let's ignore what teams go where and pretend its all even would you be in favor of divisional playoffs?

I don't care for it. You get teams out of playoffs that would deserve to get in before. Even if you add a cross over wild card spot you seem to be rewarding the team by moving them into a weaker conference for the playoffs. Plus you are going to hurt the semi finals with a strong divisional cannibalizing itself.

It SHOULD be the top two from each division get guaranteed top seeds (reward for doing well), then the best 4 left get Wild Cards, but that would make too much sense and we know the NHL is incapable of that.....the fact that they are redoing the wheel to appease Detroit (and KILL the Chicago and St Louis rivalry in the process) is damned criminal......

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Let's ignore what teams go where and pretend its all even would you be in favor of divisional playoffs?

I don't care for it. You get teams out of playoffs that would deserve to get in before. Even if you add a cross over wild card spot you seem to be rewarding the team by moving them into a weaker conference for the playoffs. Plus you are going to hurt the semi finals with a strong divisional cannibalizing itself.

Division playoff rivalries were one of the many joys of late 80's - early 90's hockey, and I'd love to see that again. There were some awesome series that came out of that time.

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I wish that they would just do a 1-16 based on the way they rank teams now, if they're going to a 4 conference/division format. Just take the 16 teams with the most points and seed them 1-16. Then we don't have the stupidness of the best East teams playing eachother all year then in the playoffs too, just so we can 90% of the time beat the weak team that comes out of the other division. Doesn't sound fun. Couldn't they make the East one big conference of 16(like it is now) and just leave it like that?

Or even just realign the west divisions based on time zone.

Pacific Div:
VAN
ANA

SJS

LAK

PHX

NW:
WIN
CGY
EDM
COL
DAL

Central:
CHI
STL

MIN

NSH

CBJ

Put Detroit in the East in the SE for now and promise them a move to more suitable division once the NHL expands to 32. Or again, realign the whole East into new divisions

Atlantic:
NJD
NYR
NYI
PHI
DET

NE:

BOS

TOR
MTL
BUF
OTT

SE:
WSH
TBL
FLA
CAR
PIT

That obviously SUCKS for PIT, but I tried to make it so no one was weird out of their areas, but somebody had to and at least they'd stay with WSH in my set up there. My point being, that we can realign based on time zone and not mess with the formula so much.

Edit: I tried to put the divisions side by side as to not make this a page long post, but I failed at it.

Absolutely hate it, under this proposed format we'll never see another Devils-Rangers Conference Final again, which completely sucks. They say this new divisional format will create more rivalries in the playoffs, but quite honestly it's better when you have two bitter rivals (NJ-NYR, PHI-PIT, BOS-MTL, etc...) battling for a chance to play in the SCF, the fact that they'll completely eliminate that is horrible imo.

Also this is what i'd do, keep the 2 conference, 6 division set-up, to hell with Detroit, they can stay out west, and bring Phoenix to Quebec:

ATL:
BUF, NJ, NYI, NYR, PHI

NE:
BOS, MTL, OTT, TOR, QUE

SE:
CAR, FLA, TB, PIT, WSH

CEN:
CHI, CBJ, DET, NSH, STL

NW:
CGY, COL, EDM, MIN, WPG

PAC:
ANA, DAL, LA, SJ, VAN

Again, Pittsburgh kinda gets screwed getting booted to the Southeast, but from a commercial standpoint, the NHL gets to promote the Pens-Caps/Crosby-Ovechkin rivalry more

Why is everyone crying over the Red Wings/Blackhawks rivalry dying? Yeah it sucks, but it revives the Red Wings/Leafs rivalry. And it will develop future rivalries for the redwings. So the entire league hates playing them, not just the west

Why is everyone crying over the Red Wings/Blackhawks rivalry dying? Yeah it sucks, but it revives the Red Wings/Leafs rivalry. And it will develop future rivalries for the redwings. So the entire league hates playing them, not just the west

Everyone but people actually from Detroit seem to be crying about the rivalry. Wings fans really don't care, they just want to play in their time zone.

I'm ok with trying it out for at least 1 year. The Wild Card idea is pretty good to make sure the deserving teams get in

though I'm 50/50 with this getting passed. A lot of fans are against it.

Edited by '7', 27 February 2013 - 02:32 PM.

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^7^ is just defending his sport sheeps.. as Alcibiades the exiled Athenian rationalizes in his speech to the enemy Spartans, he wants to take revenge on Athens because he loves it and can't stand to see the state it's in now - Triumph

Just heard something interesting proposed. Why not swap Detroit for Pittsburgh? Put DET in the ATL, PIT in the Central, NSH in the SE, Winni into the NW and MIN to the Central and then everyone's happy, right?

Just heard something interesting proposed. Why not swap Detroit for Pittsburgh? Put DET in the ATL, PIT in the Central, NSH in the SE, Winni into the NW and MIN to the Central and then everyone's happy, right?

What, nobody's happy with that. The biggest issue with Detroit and Columbus in the Central division is that as the schedule is played now, these teams have all their conference away games not against each other starting at 8 against divisional opponents. Then they have to play away games against the Pacific and Northwest, which means 4 games at 8, 8 games at 9, and 8 games at 10. I can't imagine the bitching and complaining that would come out of here if the Devils had to play nearly a fifth of their schedule where the games don't start until 9 PM.

I like the idea of divisional playoffs. Who cares about Devils-Rangers in the Conference Finals - it could be decades before they'd meet in the Conference Finals again, the odds were already super-slim that they would meet twice there ever since they went to three divisions. For all the rivalry Ottawa-Toronto had, they never met in the Conference Finals - there are only a few iterations which produce the certainty of meeting in a Conference Final: If the teams were seeded 2-6, 4-7, 5-7, 6-8, and 7-8. The rest involve the playoffs shaking out the right way, and there are tons more possible playoffs where they can't meet in the Conference final (e.g. 1-7, etc.)

I wonder what kind of split you'd get based on when someone became a hockey fan.

Back in the day winning your divisional playoffs was exciting and a big deal(whereas right now winning rounds 1 and 2 are nice but only a means to an end). Winning your division meant you were the champion of all your close rivals and you hated those rivals since you competed almost yearly in the playoffs.

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Your unconditional rejection of violence makes you smugly think of yourselves as noble, as enlightened, but in reality it is nothing less than abject moral capitulation to evil. Unconditional rejection of self-defense, because you think its a supposed surrender to violence, leaves you no resort but begging for mercy or offering appeasement.

-Terry Goodkind

Sex Panther cologne -- 50 percent of the time, it works every time.

-Anchorman

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

What, nobody's happy with that. The biggest issue with Detroit and Columbus in the Central division is that as the schedule is played now, these teams have all their conference away games not against each other starting at 8 against divisional opponents. Then they have to play away games against the Pacific and Northwest, which means 4 games at 8, 8 games at 9, and 8 games at 10. I can't imagine the bitching and complaining that would come out of here if the Devils had to play nearly a fifth of their schedule where the games don't start until 9 PM.

I like the idea of divisional playoffs. Who cares about Devils-Rangers in the Conference Finals - it could be decades before they'd meet in the Conference Finals again, the odds were already super-slim that they would meet twice there ever since they went to three divisions. For all the rivalry Ottawa-Toronto had, they never met in the Conference Finals - there are only a few iterations which produce the certainty of meeting in a Conference Final: If the teams were seeded 2-6, 4-7, 5-7, 6-8, and 7-8. The rest involve the playoffs shaking out the right way, and there are tons more possible playoffs where they can't meet in the Conference final (e.g. 1-7, etc.)

Divisional playoffs sound interesting until you realize they're using 8 team pods instead of 5 team pods.

I absolutely hate this format, the best teams should make the playoffs. Travel dictates the playoffs can't be fully open, but closing them up makes no sense. Not to mention it doesn't help when a new format gets leaked every day. Makes it look like no one has a clue of what they're doing. Feels like the NHL is going backwards in regards to this compared to everyone else.

If they are going to 32 it's inevitable but it would make a tad more sense to wait until they go to 32 to do it. You can move the divisions around to help *most* of these teams in the 6 of 5 format.

I wonder what kind of split you'd get based on when someone became a hockey fan.

Back in the day winning your divisional playoffs was exciting and a big deal(whereas right now winning rounds 1 and 2 are nice but only a means to an end). Winning your division meant you were the champion of all your close rivals and you hated those rivals since you competed almost yearly in the playoffs.

Divisional playoffs sound interesting until you realize they're using 8 team pods instead of 5 team pods.

I absolutely hate this format, the best teams should make the playoffs. Travel dictates the playoffs can't be fully open, but closing them up makes no sense. Not to mention it doesn't help when a new format gets leaked every day. Makes it look like no one has a clue of what they're doing. Feels like the NHL is going backwards in regards to this compared to everyone else.

If they are going to 32 it's inevitable but it would make a tad more sense to wait until they go to 32 to do it. You can move the divisions around to help *most* of these teams in the 6 of 5 format.

Pens - Hurricanes

Devils - Caps

Devils - Hurricanes

Devils

You feeling that bracket? Feels like a normal round 1-2 to me.

So worst case scenario is you end up with the same whatever matchups you have now. You play those same teams over and over again and real passion builds up amongst those fan bases. That's not really a guess, that's how it used to be.

I don't know that the passion would happen again now that the Internet and TV is so much more prevalent, but I imagine that's what the league is going for. In the past, divisional playoffs helped create rivalries and I think it probably would do so again, if given time.

The league is sort of damned if it does, damned if it doesn't. When the league moved away from divisional playoffs people were upset because they were ruining rivalries, now the league wants to go back to that format and people are also upset.

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Your unconditional rejection of violence makes you smugly think of yourselves as noble, as enlightened, but in reality it is nothing less than abject moral capitulation to evil. Unconditional rejection of self-defense, because you think its a supposed surrender to violence, leaves you no resort but begging for mercy or offering appeasement.

-Terry Goodkind

Sex Panther cologne -- 50 percent of the time, it works every time.

-Anchorman

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

The odds of things like maxpower's 'weak bracket' are very slim. If we assume that all teams are equally likely to make the playoffs, in an 8 team bracket and let's just assume 4 get in to make it easier, the Devils, upon getting in, would have a 43% chance of playing either the Penguins, Flyers, or Rangers in the first round.

I mean you can just as easily draw up an 8 team playoff where no rivals play each other at all.